For all you fans of Emily Ryan’s cool illustrations, check out her new site at www.emily-ryan.nu. Visual deliciousness guaranteed.
posted by duke harringay at 3:14 PM

‘blitz on city graffiti menace’ announces the advertising boards for Exeter’s local paper, the Express and Echo, referring, one assumes, to the rapid increase in stencil art and general tagging that has sprung up in the city over the past six months to a year. I find it a very strange headline. I mean, ‘menace’? Surely that’s rather over-stating the case, to put it mildly? Or perhaps people really do feel threatened by a picture of the Incredible Hulk on a wall. Even if he is only about twenty inches high. And two dimensional. And made of paint. And maybe there really is menace in a four inch picture of a little man walking dolefully, carrying his suitcase to who knows where…

I think the paper has missed a great opportunity here: ‘City welcomes boom in urban artwork – ‘we really are a CITY now’, beams local councillor’. Or maybe I’ve been playing SimCity too much.

Well whatever, at least if the council does have a blitz on the graffiti then I have recorded the majority of it for posterity. Maybe one day I can make a book out of it. ‘Lost Exeter: the Urban Art year(s)’. Now wouldn’t that be fun?

posted by duke harringay at 12:06 PM

Listening to Jandek a lot recently, courtesy of a terrific compilation CD sent my way by Tangents regular William Crain (incidentally, check out his excellent band’s website at www.thesoftset.com, it’s a beautifully designed site). Maybe most of you hipsters already know about Jandek (I understand that Nirvana chap dropped the name once or twice back in the day, but of course I wouldn’t know about that), but if you don’t, well hell, you should try and track down some of his recordings. Not much music is unclassifiable these days, but Jandek remains so. Existing unswervingly outside of the established music industry, Jandek has been making records for the past twenty five years that appear only to be available through a Texas post office box address. No-one seems to really know who Jandek is (in an interesting article, one journalist claims to have met him, just the once, and to have discussed gardening and allergies over a beer. Hopefully this is as close to an interview as we’re ever likely to get…) although there seems to be no end of intrigued interest in him and his music. For fans of pared back freak outsider folk, this is the real deal.

And incidentally, ‘pared back freak outsider folk’ is not a classification…


posted by duke harringay at 6:48 PM

Watched Blowup again last night. What a deliciously boring film it is; sequences that seem as though they have nothing to do with each other existing side by side, the only constant between them the presence of David Hemmings. Have you noticed how, after the opening sequence of the rag students on their merry dance, he’s in almost every shot…? It’s all Hemmings. Pure ego. Pure Pop. Maybe that’s why it’s such a great Pop movie.

I’m glad I watched it last night because there’s a real sense of distance and detachment in Blowup that feels appropriate to me right now. A sense of things happening outwith your control, of existing in a world that is breathing, living and dying all around you, and whilst you are in it and of it, you are nevertheless floating helplessly whilst remaining tethered tightly to the ground. Tethered freedom. What a delightful concept.

Life’s kind of like that right now. I seem to spend so much time just sort of existing. Not really doing much of anything except waiting for sleep. Looking at the clouds scuffing the sky and watching the minutes slip by so slow. All the clichés, all the crap. I’m watching too much TV, too many crappy history documentary shows. And movies… TCM is a godsend. But still. Suffering from a bad education.

Plus these days my inbox stays almost empty. This is unheard of. But then maybe it’s just another symbol of my divorce from most of the world. I dunno. Gone are the days of endless long rambling letters (replaced instead by long rambling blog entries) and, uh, whatever the hell it was I used to do. What DID I used to do? It was only a few months ago it seemed like there weren’t enough hours in the day, and now… now there are way too many. Particularly the ones spent in school, although I guess that goes without saying.

Maybe I need a new project…


posted by duke harringay at 5:32 PM